I decided to go with the Vegas Pro plus Hitfilm solution for now rather than Vegas Post. So far I am happy with my decision since it gives me access to several BCC and Mocha FX that are not currently available in Vegas Post due (I believe) to licensing reasons. You can find a useful discussion of the comparisons at https://community.fxhome.com/discussion/54210/vegas-post-18-vs-vegas-pro-hitfilm-pro-ignite-pro-imerge-pro

They really do need to offer Vegas Effects separately.

I installed Hitfilm Express (Free) and can verify it shows up in Vegas. I'm too much of a video newbie at this point to know what I'm missing from Hitfilm Pro or Vegas Effects.

So far it seems Express version lacks OFX support which Vegas has and doesn't come with a couple included plugins which come with Hitfilm Pro but don't come with Vegas Effects. Unsure at this point what if anything I would gain by purchasing Vegas Effects over the free version of Hitfilm Express.

VEGAS Effects doesn't have what Hitfilm Pro has:

1. Editing feature,

2. Foundry camera tracker,

3. Mocha hitfilm,

4. BCC 3D Objects,

5. After Effects plugins support.

Hitfilm Pro doesn't have what VEGAS Effects has :

1. Choosing main composite shot which you want to show in VEGAS Pro.

VEGAS Effects doesn't have what Hitfilm Pro has:

1. Editing feature,

2. Foundry camera tracker,

3. Mocha hitfilm,

4. BCC 3D Objects,

5. After Effects plugins support.

 

Hitfilm Pro doesn't have what VEGAS Effects has :

1. Choosing main composite shot which you want to show in VEGAS Pro.

Interesting. That's very similar to what it seems like Hitfilm Express doesn't have compared to Hitfilm Pro, except Express does have the editor.

"Vegas Effects" are still a grand mystery to me. Can anyone point to a place where these effects are listed? Vegas Movie Studio 17 Platinum seems to have a fair amount of "Vegas Effects." Are these the same class of effects? How many additional effects are in the pro version which aren't in platinum?

VEGAS Effects are not FX plug-ins. It is a stand-alone compositing software which can be linked with Vegas Pro in a certain way.

It's (almost) same as HitFilm Pro.

See the VEGAS POST product pages: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-post/vegas-effects/

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/post-production/vegas-post-suite-professional-video-production/

Ah, thanks, guys! The product description says, "Take advantage of the industry’s most extensive VFX toolkit with over 800 powerful video effects and filters to customize, tweak, combine, pull apart, and put back together." Is there a list of these "800 effects and filters" somewhere?

Also, just to be clear, Vegas Effects is available only in Vegas' Post Suite, correct?

Judging by the product pages, yes.

FYI, HitFilm Pro reference manual.

Thanks, VK!!!

"Vegas Effects" are still a grand mystery to me. Can anyone point to a place where these effects are listed? Vegas Movie Studio 17 Platinum seems to have a fair amount of "Vegas Effects." Are these the same class of effects? How many additional effects are in the pro version which aren't in platinum?

I had similar confusion of what it was and wasn't. See this thread I started asking a similar question.

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/vegas-post-vegas-effects-vegas-image--129136/

My summary take away is that Vegas Effects is FXHome's Hitfilm Pro, minus a few features and included plugins. Which got me to try out Hitfilm Express which is FXHome's free version of Hitfilm Pro minus a few features and included plugins. What I came to realize through that discussion and trying out Hitfilm Express, is that Vegas Effects as well as Hitfilm Pro and Express are standalone programs. The closest analogy that I am familiar with, that I could come up with is that they work similar to how Vegas and Sound Forge closely integrate together. So for example, when you select an audio event in Vegas and you have SF installed, you can right click on the audio event and select "Open in Sound Forge", then perform offline processing to that audio event in Sound Forge, save in Sound Forge and your event in your Vegas timeline automatically gets updated. Hitfilm and Vegas effects work the exact same way but with video events. You right click on a video event in Vegas and as long as you have Hitfilm or Vegas Effects installed, there will be a context menu item showing to "Open in Vegas Effects" and also "Open in Hitfilm", where that event would be opened in Vegas Effects, you perform your offline video FX's processing in Vegas Effects, hit save and your changes will automatically be updated into the event in Vegas.

I recommend going to the FXHome's website, downloading and installing Hitfilm Express which is their free version of Hitfilm Pro. It's a very feature rich full functional free version. After I did that, I was able to better understand what Vegas Effects was and and how it is suppose to work and integrate with Vegas.

At this time I am unable to identify what Vegas Effects provides over the latest version of Hitfilm Express. Maybe as I get more familiar with it, I will be able to identify those items but for now I'm ignorantly blissful and currently feel Hitfilm Express provides everything and more since it includes a track view editor which was removed from the Vegas Effects version.

Here's a quick summary example video someone else put together.

+ 1. Spot on.

But please take note of @lan-mLMC 's comment above about what Vegas Effects lacks over HitFilmPro:

VEGAS Effects doesn't have what Hitfilm Pro has:

1. Editing feature,

2. Foundry camera tracker,

3. Mocha hitfilm,

4. BCC 3D Objects,

5. After Effects plugins support.

Fairly much the same situation exists with the difference between HF Express and Pro. Express is more like Vegas Effects so it seems.

Anyone using Vegas Pro as their primary NLE really doesn't need to worry about point 1 (editing is done in VP) and point 5 (because you probably don't have the expensive subscription AE program), and point 4 is just an extra - though an excellent extra because it has BCC Title Studio as one of the VFX in that BCC Unit.

But Mocha's function in HitFilm Pro is extremely useful for excellent planar tracking. The tutorials on FXHome's website has long had some really good tutorials on using Mocha planar tracking in HitFilm Pro. This early one from 8 years ago is still relevant:

Of course, if Mocha planar tracking is not relevant to one's needs, then Express is likely the better choice - and its free.

Thanks Dexcon for the further details!

My summary take away between HF Express and HF Pro was that Pro includes additional tools and plugs to add 3D model animated images to your video which is way above my video editing capabilities at this time and something I don't have an interest in but most of these things can be added separately to Express for a price such as Mocha as you mentioned. So for non advanced animated 3D object creators like myself, Hitfilm Express seemed like my best option where the free pricetag was obviously a major benefit to assist me along the way as I get more experience with this type of workflow.

The other benefit for myself is that my laptop PC has a very weak GPU. I view using Hitfilm Express with Vegas as a way to add offline video FXs to my Vegas video projects by doing them in Hitfilm Express and then my GPU won't be chocked during real-time playback processing in Vegas.

The next thing I need to explore is that I recently added some NewBlue OFX plugs to my system which are available in Vegas. If those are also available to use inside of HF Express then that is all I really need for my offline processing scenario. That is workflow I've used in the past with Vegas and Sound Forge with audio and that's what I would really like to achieve. Unsure if I need Vegas Effects, HF Pro or HF Express to achieve this.

... I recently added some NewBlue OFX plugs to my system which are available in Vegas. If those are also available to use inside of HF Express ...

If you bought those plugins directly from NBFX, they should be available in any NLE that accepts OFX, including HF Express (unless Express has a block on 3rd party OFX - others on the forum could advise on this). If the NBFX plugins were 'extras' from a Vegas Pro purchase, then it is possible that those NBFX will be licence-locked to the VP version that they were bundled with and will only work within that VP version.

Unsure if I need Vegas Effects, HF Pro or HF Express to achieve this

They'll be there in the future should the need arise.

They are direct purchase from NewBlue. I'm not seeing them show up in HF Express's Effect menu. Did some googling and apparently OFX plugin support is only available in HF Pro version. Unsure if OFX plugins are supported in Vegas Effects. So maybe we can add this as another benefit of HF Pro over Vegas Effects and HF Express?

Can anyone confirm if OFX plugins are supported in Vegas Effects or not?

I see no mention of OFX plugin support on the Vegas Effects product pages.

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-post/vegas-effects/

Please remember that HitFilms come from FXhome, not from NewBlue.

Please remember that HitFilms come from FXhome, not from NewBlue.

I don't recall anyone in this discussion mentioning HitFilm is from NewBlue. What I stated in regards to NewBlue is that I recently installed some of their OFX plugins and was trying to determine if Vegas Effects supports OFX plugins like Hitfilm Pro does, so I could use my NewBlue FXs inside of Vegas Effects. That question is still unanswered.

As long as a feature of HitFilm does not require a third party agreement with other companies, it is likely to be transplanted to Vegas Effect.  

So no one actually owns Vegas Effects to know for certain if it supports OFX plugins or not and there's not a clear feature list provided by Magix so we could some how go look it up to find out prior to making a purchase decision?

I installed the demo of Vegas Post Suite 18. I was hoping I could find out that way but the demo didn't seem to include Vegas Effects. The mystery continues.............